


listen, can you hear the distance calling

by giddyant



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14574501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giddyant/pseuds/giddyant
Summary: Gia Kelly is very good at her job. And sometimes it involves saving the world.





	listen, can you hear the distance calling

Gia is very, very good at her job. Gia knows it. 

The Grand Expansion Update is announced with great ceremony in May. They will be tripling capacity with just this one update. Gia can’t believe it. It sounds too good to be true.

After ferreting out the research and details of the update, she knows it’s too good to be true. The individual tests are successful, yes, but taken together, the margin for error is too great. The system will work, yes, but it’s not going to keep working. If they are lucky, the system will shut down immediately.

if they aren’t, T-Mat may well kill people.

Gia may only be on the job proper for six months, but she’s spent the last two and a half years before that training. She’s consistently been top of her class in all subjects. She knows T-Mat. She could plot the workings of the system with her eyes closed. She does that, sometimes, at night. Every circuit, every wire falling into place perfectly in her mind.

This update is assuming that the system can handle a three-fold increase in capacity and, technically, it can. She knows it can’t hold, though. She doesn’t know how this bright idea has got past testing, but she knows in her bones that it’s bound to fail.

She goes through the research and plots out the test results herself in her free evenings. It points to a very worrying pattern in the data intake. If the pattern holds, and it should, within the first thirty minutes of the upgrade being implemented, T-Mat will either burn out or do something unpredictable. As she can’t get the full details of the what’s behind the upgrade, she’s leaning towards unpredictable. There’s no way she can compute without all the data. 

She sends out requests for more information to everyone she can think of. She gets little, or nothing, back. It’s the brainchild of a man called Lewes, who’s high up in R & D. Everyone is assured that it’s been tested to kingdom come and back, but absolutely nowhere can she find reassurance for her worries. As the update gets closer, she gives up on sending requests for information and starts sending warnings. 

Every conversation ends up the same. She tries to show how her research has brought her to this conclusion, but no one wants to admit that R & D could have gotten it wrong. It’s a terrible thought, she grants, but it’s one she’s had to live with for the last few weeks. 

 

‘It’s a disaster waiting to happen.’

‘It’s an update, Kelly. They’ve tested it. It’ll work. They wouldn’t do anything dangerous.’

For profit, Gia thinks, people would do a lot of dangerous things.

 

Much to her irritation, few seem inclined to listen to her. Most people are depressingly blasé.

The P.R. machine isn’t helping matters. It’s been in full flow for weeks now. Greater capacity! The ability to transfer dozens of people at a time! No shipment too great! She’s surprised they hadn’t promised arriving five minutes before you had left. 

She feels more and more furious as time goes on. The breathless coverage of the update is riling her, as well as her lack of success in getting anyone high up to listen. She occasionally considers giving up, but soon talks herself out of it. It doesn’t help her mood, though.

 

‘Still dwelling, Cassandra?’

Brent had been in her training programme and they had been assigned to the London reception centre on graduating. He was one of the few people who took her warnings seriously, even if he didn’t generally sound like he did.

She doesn’t turn to him as she replies. She fixes her glare at the terminal she’s working on.

‘They won’t listen.’

‘Is it really going to be that bad?’

‘Oh, it’ll be fine. It’s not like catastrophic disasters have been allowed to happen due to warning signs being ignored before.’

Brent puts a hand on her arm and turns her towards him.

‘Look, I believe you. I’ve known you long enough to know you are usually right about T-Mat.’

‘I’m always right.’

‘Always right, then. But I didn’t understand until you went through the data with me in person. You sent me the figures and, I mean, you understand it at a glance, don’t you?’

She nods.

‘Well, I certainly didn’t. It’s unlikely that the lot you’re trying to warn do either. Is there any chance of you getting to meet Radnor in person?’

‘No. He’s stuck in meetings in Geneva from now until the launch.’

‘What about Edmonds?’

Edmonds was the Chief Technician who had taken an immediate dislike to Gia two days after she had started due to her pointing out an error of his that had caused a ten minute delay of a shipment to Oslo.

‘I tried to talk to him, but he said that he knows Lewes and I had no right to question his work. When I pushed the matter, he threatened me with suspension.’

Brent grimaces. ‘He doesn’t just know him, they were at school together. The same one I went to. We got a talk from them in the last year when they were recruiting. They seemed to be big with the Old Boys.’

Old Boys rarely took notice of upstarts who came up through the technical training programme on a scholarship, except to turn their noses up. Gia had plenty of experience of that.

She turns her attention to her work and tries to remain hopeful. And to look slightly less murderous. Brent complains it puts him off his tea.

She can’t help but worry, though. This could not only damage T-Mat itself, but the public trust in it. What then? Back to rockets? Back to polluting the planet just to ensure supplies were transported to where they were needed? What price would they pay?

 

 

‘You haven’t long left. What are you going to do?’

‘Brent, I’ve messaged everyone I can think of who could stop it. I’ve sent numerous requests for meetings, I’ve sent the raw data, I’ve sent explanations. I’ve heard nothing.’

Privately, she assumes she’s been written off as a crank. Without a senior technician vouching for her, there’s no way for her to get near anyone who could stop it. She’s considered all kinds of desperate ways to get attention, but all of them would just result in her being removed from the program. What good could she do then? All she can do now is plan for the disaster to come.

 

 

She doesn’t sleep the night before the launch. She mulls over all the possibilities. The one which does the least damage is that the system shuts down immediately. The one that does the most would, at least, be over quickly.

The next morning, she arrives at work, her heart in her mouth. The extra booths are ready to operate. There’s an excited hum throughout the building.

Brent hisses at her, ‘Well? What are we going to do?’

‘Do? There’s nothing we can do, only hope I’m wrong!’

‘Can’t we stop them?’

‘There’s nothing that will stop them! I’ve even contacted the newspapers, Brent. They told me they get dire warnings about T-Mat from ‘Luddites like me’ every day. I don’t have anything left to try!’

‘We could cause a scene. Disrupt the launch.’

‘Wouldn’t help. We’d just get kicked out and they’d do it anyway. Likewise sabotage.’

Brent leans back, defeated, in his seat. 

‘You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right.’

 

 

After a number of droning speeches about how T-Mat will never be the same again, ( _I don’t doubt it_ , thinks Gia) the update is officially launched by Radnor. Twelve of the managing board of London T-Mat enter the booths to be transported to New York, while in New York, twelve of their board do the same to be sent to London. 

Gia holds her breath as Edmonds operates the controls.

 

There’s a flash, then silence.

 

It’s broken by a wail heard from near the first booth. One of the technicians is pointing horrorstruck through the smoke at it. 

 

There’s blood on the walls.

 

Gia walks gingerly over to him and looks closer. There’s a pile of what seems to be human remains on the floor of the booth. Too much, she estimates, for just one person. She shudders.

Somewhere behind her, there’s a call to the medical wing. She hears Radnor and Edmonds speaking in low voices, sounding as if they have been shaken to their cores.

All around her, terrified technicians are clustered in groups staring at the gruesome mess. She moves without thinking to the controller’s desk and sits. She forces an emergency shutdown and sends out alerts to all other receptions to cease all operations until further notice. Error messages are popping up nearly faster than she can read them. 

‘Kelly! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Edmonds is storming towards her, red-faced, Radnor in his wake. He looks sick.

‘Emergency shutdown, sir, and notifying the other hubs.’

Edmonds looks as if he’s about to launch into a tirade when Radnor steps forward and nods at her.

’Thank you for your quick thinking, Miss Kelly. What happened?’

‘She’s a trainee technician, Julian, she wouldn’t-‘

‘Commander Radnor, I believe that the system was not able to transfer all the data that we required it to, and so compensated by compressing the transmissions. It would render inanimate objects unrecognisable and unusable. It would be fatal to any living matter. Increasing the microwave channels on Earth without multiplying the Moonbase processors is likely to have caused it, but I can’t be sure.’

Edmonds splutters a protest, but Commander Radnor holds up a hand to silence him. 

‘You sound very sure of yourself, Miss Kelly. This was tested extensively before going ahead. How could something like this be missed?’

‘I studied the test results, sir. Individually, they appeared to be within acceptable parameters, but taken together and in conjunction with the existing and projected traffic, I could see that the expansion could not work as predicted. It’s not just data, Sir, it’s taking the data into account with experience.’

‘Experience?’ Edmonds jumps in. ‘You’re a trainee!’

Gia turns to Edmonds, a cold look on her face.

‘I may only be officially here for six months, but I’ve studied T-Mat extensively over the last three years. I know what it can and can’t handle. I study each upgrade and change to understand how it will integrate with the existing system. I study every error to understand how it occurred, how it was fixed, why that fix was chosen and how it can be avoided in future. I understand T-Mat theoretically and practically. And I have spent the last three months trying to warn anyone who would listen that something like this could happen.’

Radnor turns to Edmonds. ‘Is that true? Were you warned?’

Edmonds looks like he’s about to explode with indignance.

‘She approached me two months ago with some cock and bull story, alright. She couldn’t have predicted this.’

Gia nods. ‘You’re right, I didn’t predict this. In fact, I said I couldn’t predict what would happen as I needed more data, which I asked you to help me get access to. And I didn’t get it.’

She holds Edmonds’ gaze until he turns and looks away.

Radnor sighs.

‘Miss Kelly, please run a diagnostic and see if you can back your theory up. I must contact the UN and the rest of the board. We are in a devil of a bad situation. We can discuss our options once you’ve your results.’

 

 

In thirty minutes, she is handing off the findings to Radnor. He looks it over and hands it back to her, looking grim. 

“You’re right.’

‘I always am,’ she doesn’t say. Instead, she nods and ushers him over to the controller’s desk. 

‘We’ll have to set up a new relay on Moonbase to bypass the affected terminals. I should be able to use the existing machinery up there, but we’ll need at least three hours to do so. We should have enough bandwidth to get emergency transports through once it’s in place. The work to undo the update in all receptions will take a few weeks at minimum, but, with the bypass, we won’t be completely shut down. ‘

‘Why is undoing the update such a process?’

She refrains from rolling her eyes. 

‘Sir, it took weeks to install and ready this for roll-out. It would take at least that to undo it, even if it had done no damage. As it is, we will have to repair as we go. Even these diagnostics can’t show how pervasive the damage is without a root-and-branch inspection.’

‘Which we don’t have time for. Is it necessary?’

‘Today? No. We need to begin one tomorrow, though.’

‘I shall have to submit to your expert opinion, Miss Kelly. I’ll order one tomorrow. `However, I see one fault with your plan. T-Mat is offline. You cannot travel to Moonbase. Can you transmit your plans for the new channel to the staff there?’

‘No, their communications network is down as part of the damage. I think it would be best for me to lead the repairs on Moonbase, in any case. I’ve designed the workaround, after all.’

Radnor looks unconvinced.

‘I can travel there, as long as T-Mat is not being operated by anyone else.’

This is not the entire truth, but she doesn’t want to complicate matters further.

‘It sounds preposterously dangerous for you to even try, Miss Kelly! Edmonds, what do you think?’

Edmonds has been curiously silent up until now. He looks at her now with an expression she doesn’t particularly care for.

‘I see no fault in her logic. I say, let her try.’

Radnor still looks unhappy. ‘Will you be in danger, Miss Kelly?’ he presses.

‘No,’ she lies.

 

 

Stepping into the T-Mat booth, she nods at Radnor and a terrified looking Brent.

‘Ready.’

The T-Mat initialises. 

Usually, the transport is instantaneous. You blink and you’re there. Now, there is pain erupting through her and she cannot tell how long she has been in the booth. She knew before she went that the system would still try to compress her, but she hadn’t lied that it depended on whether T-Mat was being operated in more than one place. They haven’t fixed the error, of course, but it won’t kill her. Probably. She can only hope that she survives in sufficient good health to lead the repairs.

It’s still the worst pain she has ever experienced.

It’s either five seconds or an hour later, when she finds herself on the floor of the booth at Moonbase. A shocked Phipps is looking in at her.

‘Good god, Kelly! What’s going on? Everything just started smoking and shut down! How did you get here?’

She tries to speak, but can’t. Her whole body feels bruised. She tries to pull herself up, but her limbs are like jelly. Phipps calls out for assistance. Osgood and he lift her out of the booth and settle her on the chair by the terminal. She takes a moment to take stock of herself. She’s pretty sure she has everything she left Earth with. 

Possibly even in the same places they started out in. Well, she’d take it.

She opens her mouth twice before managing to speak.

‘Gentlemen.’

‘Yes, Kelly. Are you alright?’

‘We have work to do.’

 

 

It takes a while for her to explain the situation, longer still to convince them to allow her to take the lead. Not because they don’t believe she has the ability, but in a misguided attempt to make her take it easy. Still, they eventually listen and provide her with what she needs.

She goes through their inventory of working equipment and begins to plan her bypass. She can work with it. Rerouting currents, rewiring circuits and finally program it from scratch. Should be fine.

She tells herself that again when, four hours in, a fire undoes a good 80% of their progress. 

Gia sets her jaw. They try again, slightly singed.

10 hours in, they finally have a workable channel. Only thing left to do was to test it.

She inputs the destination, ignoring Phipps’ interruptions. It had been nothing but ‘Shouldn’t you take a break?’, ‘Why don’t you have a cup of tea?’ and ‘I really don’t think you look well.’ for a good two hours now. Honestly, it was more tiring to tune him out than to program the channel.

‘Right, I think we’re done. Just one thing left to do.’

She activates the time switch, stands up and strides over to the booth as steadily as she can. 

‘Kelly, what are you doing? You’re not testing this on yourself! Kell-‘

She closes the door of the booth and finds the energy to wave at Phipps as she dematerialises.

 

 

Her arrival back on Earth attracts no attention until she steps out of the booth. Then, all hell breaks loose. People crowd around her and she can’t make out any individual voices, just a roaring in her ears.

A hand around her wrist pulls her free and sets her on a chair. Brent.

‘You alright?’

She gives a tight smile. It’s apparently less than convincing, given that he turns to another tech and asks him to get a medic down here. She protests, but he ignores her. At some point, she must close her eyes, as when she opens them, Brent is gone and Radnor is sitting in front of her, a mix of concern and pride on his face. 

‘I did say it would be dangerous.’

‘You did,’ Gia agrees.

She doesn’t want an argument right now, but he seems to be happy to leave it at that.

‘Just give me a brief update and we’ll see about getting you some medical attention. Then, you can sleep.’

She goes through the repairs, the state of Moonbase, and explains the new channel set up. 

‘My trip down to Earth was the final test. I suffered no ill effects. I believe restarting T-Mat is safe now.’

Radnor looks serious. ‘I don’t know if I approve of your methods, Miss Kelly, but I cannot deny their effectiveness. What you did today has saved Earth from widespread famine and disease. I’ll be giving the instructions to reinstate T-Mat on a limited basis now and tomorrow we can look at how we can get back to normal.’

‘Sir,’ she feels this is something she has to say. ‘Please believe me when I say I’m not against improving T-Mat. I know, with work, it can be infallible.’

Radnor smiles at her slightly. ‘Your faith in T-Mat is admirable, Miss Kelly, considering the day you’ve had. I will personally ensure that your expertise will be listened to in future. Now, I believe that there is a bed for you in the medical unit. No arguments, please. You need rest. We will need you to be at your best in the coming weeks. You have proven yourself to be invaluable, Miss Kelly. And I intend to see you treated as such.’

**Author's Note:**

> Posted as part of Who Guestfest 2018 for the prompt 'Gia Kelly ("Seeds of Death"): Saving the world isn't just punching aliens, radio-ing for help or shoving gold into Cyber chest plates'.


End file.
